In the future when I reflect on June 2026, it will be forever etched in my memory as the month when Americans were reminded just how amazing we have it in this country. I’ve always been super America-pilled and am quick to always tell others how good we Americans have it, but it’s been additionally satisfying to just see the thousands of social media posts of international tourists experiencing American Walmarts, Costcos, and Buc-ee’s for the first time. So I wanted to just take a quick minute to jot down some notes so I have a physical artifact to remember this month by years from now.

The 2026 World Cup kicked on June 11 this year, cohosted by Canada, the United States, and Mexico and across all of social media, international visitors from Europe, Asia, and Australia have been celebrating America! Our ubiquitous air conditioning, Waffle House, Popeyes, our ranch dressing. There is a German kid, Freddy, currently roadtripping across America who’s tweeting his exploits in realtime on X and has captured the hearts and imaginations of millions, even appearing on America’s national news. Apparently, we have things like crushed ice and free beverage refills in our American restaurants that aren’t the standard custom abroad.

What is wonderful to me is that Europeans generally have an ethos of “working to live” while Americans believe in “living to work.” Europeans generally enjoy more leisure time but that also means Americans are busy toiling away on side-hustles, their jobs, etc. Consequently, America has created a country —for better and for worse— with extreme optionality and excess. It’s just fun for me to see Europeans experience the American standard of living.

What I especially I love about this year’s World Cup is they chose one of the venues to be the Kansas City Stadium which seats over 76,000 people. By having a venue in the middle of America, it gives international tourists a chance to see our suburbs and daily way of life for 20% of Americans. I know it’s probably not great for the environment, but that aside, I do love how every corner of America is getting some love during this tournament. Matches are being held in Boston, New York (well, New Jersey), Miami, Dallas (Arlington), and Los Angeles. America is geographically a giant country and so I think it’s only fitting that visitors see all the vast wonders that our nation has to offer.

Finally, I enjoy that the tournament has expanded from 32 to 48 teams. I know much of it owes to FIFA’s desire to make more money. But that reason aside, I love that there are countries people have never heard of (at least, I hadn’t) such as Curaçao and Cape Verde (who is currently having a Cinderella tournament, having qualified for the knockout stages!) Media companies are incentivized to paint things in a bad light and continually harp on problems in order to get people to continually click and tune in. I really encourage people to minimize their exposure to news online. We are seriously living in an age of marvel and wonder right now. Endless entertainment at your fingertips and more knowledge than ever be consumed in multiple lifetimes at your every whim.

Meanwhile, in other news: I have been keeping up with my morning LMNT routine and also walking 45 minutes each morning. I’ve lost nearly eight pounds so far and am currently aiming to be 155 lbs which will put me at ~15% body fat. I think I’ll get there by end of summer!

…

Loose Change

1. The Classic Tetris World Championships happened on June 5, 2026. Congratulations to Dog who won the thing! Meme got second place and sadly Alex T had to forfeit due to hand injury in the semifinals. Tetris is a tough game! I’ve definitely been there myself!

2. UFC Freedom 250 happened on June 14, 2026. It was a mindblowing spectacle. The American, Justin Gaethje vanquished the previously undefeated Georgian/Spanish Ilia Topuria in a four-round fight for the ages. I watched it live on Paramount+ and the fight was spectacular. 🥊 It’s still amazing to me that the event took place at all at the Whitehouse.
   

3. I discovered that the Amex Platinum card offers a quarterly $100 credit for Resy restaurants!!

As May draws to a close, I realize I watched a ton of theatrical movies this past month: The Devil Wears Prada 2, Michael, and Mortal Kombat II. (It was a busy month for Bad Movie Club! 🥳) All three of these movies were excellent and I wanted to just take a quick minute to chronicle some thoughts.

The Devil Wears Prada 2

My favorite takeaway from this movie was how the film lionized women unapologetically putting work and their careers ahead of family, romance, and all else. I feel movies often push a message of “family first” which is fine. But it’s wonderful to see other movies pushing a contrary message as well. Meryl Streep even comments on it directly towards the movie’s end: “I just love my job.” As context, the whole setup is she’s arriving in her twilight years and is asked, “If you can do anything at the world, what you do?” In that moment Streep doesn’t give a thought at all to her twins or new partner (the always excellent, Kenneth Branagh) but instead chooses to be “the new Head of Global Content” at the mega-corporation that is going to be newly formed after Runway is peeled off and sold to VC/Private Equity. This has always been her “dream” and “what she’s always wanted most.” I absolutely loved that.

Additionally, I also loved how Emily Blunt’s character totally abandons her children and ex-husband too when she jets off to Milan for the fashion show. Emily does try the “marriage and children thing,” decides it’s not for her, and then just unceremoniously dumps them to jet around to realize her true dreams of living out a life of high fashion.

Finally: Anne Hathaway’s character, who is 40 in the movie, is still childfree and dating, though it is always clear she puts her career ahead of her love life. Again, I don’t personally have these values but I respect the movie for pushing a narrative for women that there is more to life than children and family. This is America, the land of diversity! Instead of conforming yourself to what the collective good may want or need, selfishly pursuing your individuality at all costs is the most American thing I can think of. In this respect, TDWP2 is the most American movie ever and I salute it for that. 🇺🇸🫡

…

Michael

I obviously know of Michael Jackson and the general outline of his story but wasn’t familiar with any of the details. This movie only covers the early part of his career but I really love Colman Domingo’s portrayal of Joseph Jackson, Michael’s father, in this movie. Just absolutely merciless and and incredibly hard on Michael and his siblings in the beginning, forcing them to practice ad nauseam even after they returned from performances as children. I don’t have children but I think this is how parenting should be done. If you are too soft on your children, they will just grow up to be selfish, entitled, and weak. Michael clearly had a generational talent, but it was his father —who worked full-time as a crane operator— who really helped Michael realize his full potential. The one takeaway I have from Michael is if you wish to be extraordinary (eg. get out of Gary, Indiana), you need to be talented and also be willing to work harder than anyone else, even if much of that hard work looks like parental abuse by modern standards. Tough love is how boys become men. This day and age, we may frown on fathers like Joseph Jackson but I really admire what he was able to accomplish and his results are undeniable. He believed in his children and drove them around in their VW bus in snow and rain, all while working a full-time job. The man had ten children!!

…

Mortal Kombat II

Finally, rounding out May’s movies was Mortal Kombat II. This movie didn’t have any deep philosophical messaging like TDWP2 or Michael; it was simply a fun movie. 🍿🎉

The Liu Kang/Kung Lao fight was spectacular and when the Techno Syndrome ending credits kicks in, you’re reminded of the wonder that is the cinemas. The one great thing about this movie is the the director Simon McQuoid and his team really listened to the fans and changed MK2 to be everything MK1 was not. We wanted a tournament format - we got it! We wanted the original MK characters and not some new rando as the MC - we got that too! We wanted callbacks to the original videogame like all the gruesome fatalities and those were all there in spades. It saddens me that MK2 didn’t do better at the box office — hopefully there’ll be a third one!

I spent April thinking a lot about care. Namely, about how I show up in the world and what I put my attention, time, and effort into. As the old adage goes, you are what you pay attention to. In April, I took a beat from all of my usual routines and reflected on if they were really how I wanted to spend my life. I’ve made some changes.

In March, I’d previously written about how when you’re childless, the burden then falls entirely to you to orient and structure your life properly. April was a continuation of figuring out new routines to orient me towards the things I actually care about: health, exercise, my writing. And equally importantly: shedding all the habits and behaviors which did not contribute to my north star.

On the health and exercise front, I’ve abandoned ChatGPT and have switched over to Claude now. I use Claude to snap photos of what I’m eating so I can more granularly track my calories and protein with every meal.

I’ve given up volunteering and attending random meetups and book clubs. I used to think a varied life was important to my writing — that by acquiring new experiences, it would contribute to content for me to write about. This year I’d originally planned to go walk the Camino de Santiago in Portugal. It’s been on my bucket list for a while now and I thought this year when I turned 40 would be when I finally did it. I’ve decided to not do it.

“Strike while the iron’s hot”

When I reflect on my thirties I now realize one thing very clearly: the passions that motivated me that decade now no longer move me. I no longer feel the itch to travel or “see the world”. On the contrary, with the little travel I have done, I now thoroughly feel I’ve seen enough of the world. Where I am right now, the world no longer interests me. Life moves in seasons and if you miss a season, there’s no going back and to relive that era of your life. Whatever drive you may have felt during that season of life with those priorities have passed and a new season has dawned. One advice I would give to my younger self was to honor my impulsive emotions more. Maybe it wasn’t the right time in terms of money to travel — but that didn’t matter because emotionally I was in the mood then. It would’ve been more prudent to travel poor at that time in my life than to travel not poor now. We change as the years and decades pass and I’m no longer the person I was back then. You never step into the same river twice. Now I do actually have the savings to travel, I no longer even want to. The idea of getting on a plane for nine hours or spending a night not in my own bed seems outright awful even if it’s a high class hotel. This was a revelation I felt when I was in Paris for the first time last summer. The people were nice and many of the sites were beautiful, but I honestly just didn’t want to be there for most of that trip.

The rest of the year

My perfect day now entails following my routine which has become pretty strict. A very narrow and specific diet to burn belly fat (trying to get to 15% body fat), a religious walking and gym lifting routine, and lots of writing, rewriting, and organizing. For this season of life I’m currently in, I’ve really taken Atul Gawande’s advice to heart:

“Say yes to everything before you’re 40, and say no to everything after you’re 40.”

March was not a productive month for me. I fell into bad habits mindlessly scrolling YouTube again and my writing also came to a standstill. I was in a funk for the entire month. I got sick with the weather warming and also dropped off a bit from my gym routine. Everything is connected. If I stop exercising regularly every day, I’ve come to learn that usually signals the beginning of the end.

Increasingly as I get older, I now realize it’s all about the small decisions. Therein lies the difference between absolute victory and total defeat. Say I sit down in the evening to write. I will often have a momentary urge to first check the news or watch a quick video on YouTube. This path, almost unfailingly, always leads to a wasted half hour or hour or more. When you are childless and don't have other pressing responsibilities and are not in an office environment like at work, or there's no one else to keep you accountable, there is only you, for better or for worse.

The act of writing a novel is eking out a victory of 10,000 such small decisions. The decision to write instead of scroll. The decision to goto the gym instead of laze around at home and nap.

Additionally, being childless makes you incredibly vulnerable to Parkinson’s Law (“work expands or contracts to the time allotted”).

One example: a few weekends ago, our friends had us over for breakfast. Everyone was in the dining room talking and I was helping N out in the kitchen. (He’s over a decade younger than me but was already a father of one and his wife is expecting a second this summer!) As we chatted though, I marveled at how efficient and productive N was — while we talked, he’d simultaneously loaded dishwasher, washed out the mixing bowl in the sink, scrubbed the batter off the spatulas, and cleaned out the waffle iron. He then proceeded to wipe down the counters as we were carrying forth. Meanwhile, the entire time, I’d (pathetically) dried one or two cups with a dishrag.

This memory has stayed with me: when people are busy (eg. with children), they find a way to create time. They streamline operations. It’s no coincidence to me that J.K. Rowling wrote her first novel while needing to care for her infant daughter as a single-mother. I used to always think it was incredible that a woman who was so busy caring for an infant could find the time to write The Sorcerer’s Stone. I now realize it was only because she had an infant did she have the necessary constraints and harbor the necessary desperation to crank out that first book. As I’ve previously written, being childless is actually a kind of hard mode in which it’s actually more difficult to do anything because you’re in fact “too free”. It’s easier to make those small decisions to stay focused when you’re responsible not only for yourself but for your children and loved ones. But in the absence of anchors and guardrails to guide your time, you have only you.

In summary: this past in March, more than ever, I’d re-learned how badly things can go sideways if I’m not constantly vigilant. I’d been making good progress writing in January and February but let myself fall off the wagon this month. Being childless means I’ll need internal discipline which, critically, also requires the correct diet and exercise regimen. Without forcing functions, I’ll need to correctly make 10,000 small decisions to stay on task to crank out this first novel I want to formally publish.

In the end, I took the plunge. Because if something isn’t working, we can’t just keep repeating tried/failed patterns and expect different outcomes. And, for me social media wasn’t working. I’ve been posting on social media everyday for +2 years now (X in 2024 and then Bluesky in 2025) and the results have been solidly mixed: the consumption part is great; I’ve read, watched, and learned many fascinating things. But while I’ve met a few people, I largely haven’t connected with as many strangers as I’d hoped to. The “social” in “social media” wasn’t working for me.

So for the month of February, I overrode all my instincts and reservations about not building castles in other people’s kingdoms and spent four weeks building a magnificent castle in someone else’s kingdom.

On February 4, I joined a Dark Forest Operating System (DFOS) space called New Creative Era. DFOS is from the same team that brought you and spearheaded by of Kickstarter fame. I don’t know Yancey personally but have religiously followed his New Creative Era podcast, which is how I heard about this DFOS space to begin with. From the few brief chat interactions I’ve had with him in the DFOS platform, he seems like a good guy. And when I first joined the NCE DFOS space and voiced some of my concerns in the general chat, someone on his team even DM’d me separately to vouch for him. So that definitely helped sway me a bit. I’ve also followed him for a bit now even before NCE, reading his blog and collecting his Post-Individual essay and others. I think it’d be more accurate to say that I’m not necessarily as convinced by dark forests as I am simply believing in Yancey.

What is DFOS? They describe it as “a private internet” which I think is accurate. eg. For February, I basically stopped checking Bluesky, Substack, WSJ, and YouTube. Whatever time I would’ve spent blindly scrolling, replying to strangers, watching clips, and reading articles, I basically instead spent in the DFOS universe. We only have so many hours in a day; it’s zero sum. DFOS was the first site I’d visit each morning, throughout each day, and then into evening, just hopscotching around my various DFOS spaces. There’s the general New Creative Era space which all people initially land in. And then from there, it speciates into specialized niche spaces. Coffee, tech, music, writing, etc. (I personally run a writing space.) Space runners can decide to make their DFOS space closed, application-only, or open. But people can only join spaces if they have “keys” which take the form of specialized join links.

…

“Goodbye, Ghandi”

I may wish that social media was more open, that more people engaged openly and with generosity in the open plains and tall grass, but after two years of using X and Bluesky, I must concede defeat. Additionally, I grew another year older recently and my old age has now been making me more generally reflect on my broader core values and worldview. I’ve sadly decided: I am now turning my back on Gandhi. I tried to be the change I wished to see in the world but the world was indifferent; I haven’t changed anything; I have simply only suffered. I no longer believe in being the change you wish to see in the world. For example: all the years I’d used PC instead of Macs. (I switched over to Mac in Jan 2025 and it changed my life immeasurably for the better!) For years now, I’ve chosen to #buildinpublic over retreating to private, more intimate spaces likes dark forests because I felt some (misguided?) obligation to the commons and public good. But while I may be comfortable sharing freely on the open, clearnet web, I have simply empirically learned that it is unequivocally true: other people feel much more comfortable sharing in dark forest spaces. So in the end, we must meet the world where it is, not where we wish it were. I have built for years in the open trying to help my people find me. It didn’t really work. So now I’m wandering into the dark forests to find them.

…

The good stuff

In literally two days on DFOS in the NCE space I had more engagement than in two years of using X and Bluesky. In two days in the NCE dfos space, I’d met other high-agency people who were interested in reading James C. Scott’s Domination and Arts of Resistance and we created an NCE Reading Group which now meets weekly. Additionally, I’ve created a new invitation-only writing space (The Forest of Arts & Letters) and as of today, six other people have already joined even though I’ve shouted from the rooftops that it will not be a free space but will eventually cost a $1/mo tithing like in church. Not all dark forests are like this (for example, last year I’d tried the pay-only group on Discord and didn’t vibe with them) but the NCE dark forest has —so far— been incredibly welcoming and everything I’ve been looking for. Tons of synchronicities everywhere. Everyone knows who Adam Curtis is. And since we all found our way to the space from the NCE podcast, there’s those two seasons of common firmament that operates as a sort-of biblical touchstone for the whole community. People have passed the shibboleth to be there, which is why we’re all —at least for now while the total population’s still small— so aligned. People volunteer to make art and membership cards. Someone made a map of all members and a script that combines all our daily song picks (one member’s each day) to mash together 30-min super-mixes we lovingly call MEGASONG. The internet is fun again and so far, the experience has been wonderful. It’s only when I think about the larger questions— can I export my data into something useful? Will the platform even still be around in a few years? If everyone does what I’m doing, what does that mean for the commons? —do I feel uneasy.

But I think Yancey put it well in NCE’s Season 2 finale: “Forward not back.”

What we currently have with the public internet, where a handful of billion and trillion dollar companies literally own all distribution and followers don’t mean anything cannot possibly be our path forward. I don’t know if DFOS is the future but we must try something different if we want our future to be different and this is the closest thing I’ve found so far.

If you’re interested, the rabbit hole starts here: https://nce.dfos.com.

Robert

—

Postscript - Loose change:

1. In February, I channeled one of my all-time heroes of high literature, and published satirical pieces every Mon/Wed/Fri! I call the series The Robertlandian and had a blast doing them, twelve pieces total for February! I thoroughly enjoyed writing satire about contemporary news though— I feel trying to intentionally write something satirically funny stretches my brain in a unique way nothing else really does. So I’ll be continuing the practice into March!

2. Pretty sure this is the future of news.

3. Formally wrote up a summary of my personal website, https://robertl.in! (This was just so I’d have a single canonical piece to share across the different DFOS spaces I’d joined.)

I.

S is traveling again so I’m on my own once more. Q1 every year is always my “Home Alone Quarter” when she escapes Cincy’s winter cold and I get about three months to go deep into mercenary mode to work on my own things. Last week I played pickleball for the first time this winter and can currently barely walk; we also got 18 inches of snow dumped on us last weekend. ☃️ It’s been a busy month and I’ve been heads-down, knee-deep in work and personal projects. (My BFF also launched a Kickstarter project and so I’ve been rooting him on too from the sidelines!)

…

II. “Feed your soul first”

On January 8, I began writing a fiction project.

What I’ve come to appreciate with this project, which I’m three weeks into now, is that it’s become my great white whale. Everyone needs a Moby Dick. This project has focussed all my free time, attention, and effort. In its absence, my efforts had always previously been diffuse and never accrued or compounded. I no longer waste hours every week mindlessly reading news, scrolling YouTube, or writing lengthy screeds on social media. Most my waking moments now gravitate around this fiction project. Even when I’m not physically sitting in front of my computer writing my story, I’m usually thinking about it. Bits of dialogue. Plot twists. Character interactions. For me, writing fiction’s very different than non-fiction. Non-fiction (like this monthly dispatch series) I can crank out, very compartmentalized. But fiction-writing, when I do it seriously, is more of an all encompassing lifestyle. It seeps into every facet of life and takes over.

The hard rule I’ve set for myself is every day, no matter what, I write 500 words in a standalone entry which I then post on Substack. After I finish, I record my progress to my fiction manifest. As of today —Jan 31, 2026— I am 13,000 words (14.44%) to my 90,000 word goal! 🥳

Three weeks in, I haven’t missed a single day. Every day, before and after work, I noodle on my story first thing before I attend to anything else. I call it, “feed your soul first.” Practically, this means I’ve put this fiction writing project ahead of my daily gym routine, eating, grocery shopping, and shoveling my driveway. This stark prioritization has provided total clarity; I don’t find time to work on this fiction project; I make time. For example, on Monday with all the snowfall, I had to choose between writing or shoveling the driveway. I chose writing and just drove right over the snow which then unfortunately packs it and makes it ice. This’ll now be annoying for the next few weeks until all the packed ice melts but it will eventually melt. But most importantly, I kept my writing streak alive! All serious endeavors require making choices which entails tradeoffs. I make time because I have literally thought about writing a full-length novel to publicly sell for my entire life. It’s time to finally do it. When I finish, I will self-publish it on Kindle and also create a limited release with numbered editions to sell on . In the end, our lives are just the sum of whatever we’ve paid attention to. For the next 180 days, I’ve chosen for this novel to be what I pay attention to. Ahab may have been ultimately destroyed by the whale. But what I personally always took away from Moby Dick was if Ahab hadn’t pursued the whale so ferociously, he would’ve still as equally —and even more severely— been totally destroyed. Not pursuing obsession is not a solution— that is just a recipe for a lifetime of regret; I often think of this as the “Creative’s Curse”— like Murakami once remarked, “Man doesn’t choose fate. Fate chooses man.” Any person who has ever yearned to be creative didn’t choose the obsessive lifestyle. The obsessive lifestyle chose them.

…

III. How I write fiction

As for the writing process itself, this is the third full-length story I’ll have written, so I have a routine at this point. I do two passes. The first pass is foundation work— where I create the block of ice. Foundation work, for me, is character/world/story/plot. I am trying to figure out who are my characters? What world do they live in? What happens in this world? And how do my characters fit into it all? Foundation work is where I lay out the bones and musculature of the story and the key principle during this stage is speed and momentum. The two rules I have for my 500 fiction words everyday is I cannot hate what I write, and whatever I’ve written needs to actually further the novel in some way (and not just be a totally random, disjointed scene unrelated to everything previous). After I crank out the first draft of 90,000 words, I’ll then return and do my second, final pass where I’ll fix inconsistencies and add all polish and rhetorical flourishes.

For Story #3, I’ve decided to try something different too: I am writing it publicly on Substack and openly sharing all my progress as I go. It’s definitely a bit embarrassing to be publicly sharing my fiction writing, especially since in its inchoate state it feels weirdly even more personal and intimate. But I’ve decided to #writeinpublic as an experiment very much inspired by my own #buildinpublic experiences in software development and as also a matter of personal philosophy.

Philosophically, I’d always historically been precious about my fiction writing and operated from a place of fear and scarcity. I had it in my head that my dear characters and storylines were precious and needed protection. I was afraid of people stealing my ideas, characters, or plot points. And so I’d hoarded my creative work, laboring in private and in isolation. My thinking was that only after I’d crafted my magnum opus would I then emerge from my secluded mountain cave to show my chef-d'œuvre to the adoring masses who were waiting with bated breath to receive this great gift that I was going to so generously confer upon their unenlightened souls.

As I’ve aged though, I’ve since evolved on this stance, largely inspired by . Ideas are a dime a dozen. Any given day, I’ll have a dozen ideas. What really matters is execution. That’s what separates the doers from the never-haves. Following Kevin's advice, I'm going to try writing this Story #3 this time from a position of abundance instead of fear and scarcity. And I'm really hoping that the process of writing and sharing publicly as I go will also connect me with others on my frequency and wavelength. Let's give it a try!!

(Though I do have a question for and at too: if I publish my work on Substack and some unscrupulous actor does outright plagiarize my words and unfairly makes tons of money by ripping off my IP— could Substack’s Defender program help me go after them? Is that how that works? 🤔)

…

IV. Story #3

In summary, I call this one “IRL fan-fiction”. It’s essentially a parallel universe of our existing reality, but the version of it playing out in my head. Global geopolitics, Big Tech’s effect on society, AI, and over everything hangs the specter of a possible World War 3. If I had to write an inside jacket cover, it would start like this:

The old world is crumbling and slowly slipping away. America has forcefully bought Greenland which ruptures the global order and leaves NATO in tatters.

The European continent finds itself in decline, rapidly fading into obscurity and irrelevance, all its best days and greatest triumphs behind it. In the waning days of his twilight, old Professor Emeritus Ilya Kovačević at the Sorbonne creates a new invention which he hands over to the multi-trillion dollar Ryndel Corporation, in hopes it will turn the tide. Meanwhile, in America, 39-year-old Christian Buckley, billionaire cofounder and CEO of LIV Technologies [who takes a lot of inspiration from current IRL Big Tech CEOs and companies] grapples with his own legacy and role in the world as civilization unravels and accelerates towards collapse.

That’s where we essentially are so far, four chapters into the story. I’m honestly not sure where it’s all going but I have faith the Universe will lead me true! (Also, I’d originally envisioned this fiction project as a roman à clef but it’s increasingly wandered off the rails into wholly speculative territory. 🙂)

All in all though, I love it! Writing fiction, IMHO, is a fantastic exercise in imagination and empathy building. It forces me to imagine what lives as young CEO tech titans, government officials, and children of quintuple-divorced billionaires may look like. It also gives me a vehicle in which to speculate about what and how near-future technologies will shape our world and society at large. The way I write fiction is I see myself essentially as an excavator. All I do is show up every day at my computer, pray for divine inspiration, and dig. The muse then answers and I simply transcribe. While I may have loose, nebulous ideas that functionally operate as prompts, the specific words/sentences/paragraphs that spill out of me onto the page never cease to surprise me. We all have our roles to play.

Architecturally, the story’s very much inspired by The West Wing and Game of Thrones and done ensemble-style. Multiple POVs all weaved together to tell the story, alternating chapters. It’s in third-person present tense. Tone-wise, it’s currently all over the place. Overall though, I’d call it zany and humorous in the spirit of , Louis Sachar’s Wayside School books (which I’d read as a kid growing up 🙂), and Christopher Buckley’s light breezy fare which I later enjoyed in my YA years. But occasionally, my story has also chosen —entirely on its own volition— to wander into darker, more serious territory.

Anyway, if you’re interested— the story starts here and here’s the latest entry. (And here are all of my notes which I update in realtime as I write it!)

See everyone next month and if you’re in the US, keep warm! ❄️

Robert

…

This month’s photo

For Bad Movie Club in January, I hosted! We’d watched Brendan Fraser’s Rental Family (which I’d heard about on NPR’s Fresh Air) and I liked it! In over three years, this was the first time I had everyone over and it was fun. 🎉 Sadly, we’d forgotten to take a group photo (a running tradition!) but luckily, AI saved the day! I really recommend everyone join a monthly, recurring IRL club though. Movies, books, food, running, or just hanging out. We are human beings!!

It’s staggering when I consider just how much of my adult life I’ve generally spent in parasocial relationships. Driving, washing dishes, walking — I almost always have my Bose earmuffs on listening to something during nearly all waking hours I’m not working. These are people who’ve been in between my ears week after week, month after month, year after year. They’ve all, each in their own way, indelibly shaped who I am today and have influenced my opinions and beliefs in ways large and small. I started using social media every single day on January 1, 2024 and have discovered via Bluesky and Substack more fascinating essays, anecdotes, toys, and music than I could’ve ever dreamed of.

Obviously, parasocial relationships aren’t new and Cronkite/Swift fans are legion. But with social, there was now a new space - a fifth place1 - a public forum to broadcast back. To, as a total nobody, promulgate my personal appreciation and support for people who I’ve learned so much from and parasocially spent so many hours with. And, critically, to publicly let everyone else know:

“These are the people I trust; the values I wish to propagate in the world; people I am directionally aligned with, folks cut from the same cloth who share my same superstructure. I may not agree with everything they always say, but I believe their voices are worthy to human civilization. ie. When the aliens invade or the robots take over I want New Creative Era and Dialectic to be the aural artifacts that survive to represent our species. I want Indie Thinkers and Pirate Wires to be the corpus that the aliens/robots train on to rebuild human civilization.”

In January 2024, I’d previously espoused my appreciation snapshot then on X and this year I’ve decided to do it here on Substack. In no particular order:

1. of . I loved our chat back in October and your weekly Think Week posts! Specifically, I love the spirit of Indie Thinkers and how you don’t paywall content and how reading your writings has really helped me crystalize my own thoughts in this space. I 💯 agree with you, , and . The internet is not IRL. IRL, I believe in gatekeeping like Costco memberships, private libraries, and private parks. But online, constraints and affordances are totally different. Online, we have the advantages of infinite distribution/scale, zero marginal cost, and the ability to nuclear-block people. Given these unique affordances, skeuomorphic design for online communities makes no sense; rather, knowledge wants to be free and, more importantly, people should be able to connect and learn online from each other for free.

   

   On the internet, I use my real name and put out my real thoughts in every online space I’m in. I’m not some version of myself on ABC and then another on XYZ. I’m just me. And following POSSE, I replicate everything I’ve ever posted and every person I’ve ever connected with in public on my personal site for all to see:

   

   To me, this is the beauty of the internet and I’ll fight for it to my last breath. We must not cede the commons to the lunatics!! ✊ and said it best: people who can and want to pay will pay simply to support you because they believe in you. We are human beings, not resources awaiting extraction.

   .

2. Which brings me to two people who —at least on this singular point— exist wholly opposite me: and of New Creative Era. In so many ways, Dark Forest philosophy and closed, pay-to-play organizations like are the antitheses of everything I believe in wrt internet communities. Yancey and Josh are the Syndicate to my IMF. Hugo to my Keanu. Toohey to my Roark. The entire DF philosophy is 180° diametrically opposed to what I believe the internet at its best should be and champion a worldview I’m increasingly making my life’s purpose to thwart and discourage. But in my heart of hearts, I’m a pluralist, Harold Bloom believer, and simply love listening to you two every week. NCE’s attractor field is just too OP. You push me on my own beliefs and constantly make me think. (Also, hearing about Josh’s tanning practices and hero’s journey from WoW guild person in his mom’s basement to NYT profile was hilarious/enlightening/inspiring. ☀️) We may believe in different visions for internet communities but I love me a good rivalry. May the best idea win! 🏆
   .

3. of Dialectic. Congratulations on the Notion sponsorship! It’s honestly incredible to me that Dialectic is in my top five of ‘25 and you started only a year ago. I specifically loved your chats with Geoffrey, Nadia, and Sacca. (Sacca, in particular, is incomparable and positively magnificent. 😂 I honestly think of Chris Sacca as the spirit animal of venture/tech bros everywhere.) What I love about Dialectic though is that it’s so clearly such a labor of love for you and I’ve learned so much from your conversations. It’s been a joy to follow along and hear which guest you’ll have on next!
   .

4. of . No notes. Just keep being you, man. Ignore all the haters. The world needs more Solana. My personal favorites: Exit vs Build, Pirate Idol, and your Atlantic piece! Also: recently at the office the topic of “AI water use” popped up and I replied in our company Slack with PW’s informative article! This is how change happens. One Slack message at a time. Minds reached; hearts touched. I see Pirate Wires at the vanguard of western civilization, fighting for our values, fighting for what makes America great. In the immortal words of my CEO hero, thank you from the bottom of my heart for doing “God’s work”. 🇺🇸
   .

Heading into January, I wish everyone a wonderful EOY and the happiest of new years. I really do believe that we’re all connected, that we’re all nodes in The Universe’s Master Graph. That what values/beliefs we choose to propagate matters. What messages will wither on the vine with us? What signals will we choose to amplify or attenuate? Individually, any one person’s only a single node, but , New Creative Era, , and Dialectic are supernodes. An impressionable 12 year-old may have read a DNR Discord message I made back in March, have found their way to my Substack in June, and literally may be reading this email blast right now in December, through which they’ll then discover and Dialectic. And then 30 years from now, that 12-year-old may be elected President of the United States, becoming leader of the most powerful nation on earth. But like in Inception, their most cherished beliefs and cornerstone values are literally being sculpted and shaped now in Discord servers and Reddit threads, in Bluesky replies and Substack notes. Publishing on social in 2025 is community service and posting is how one participates in the modern world writ large in our current age. Humans exerting effort pleases the Universe and posting is, I do sincerely believe, doing “God’s work”.

The moral arc of the universe is long and bent by those who show up. Thank you, in 2025, for showing up. I look forward with bated breath to seeing you guys in action in 2026. 🫡

Warmly,
Robert

—

A few weeks ago, our office sent every single employee The Compass Within by . Now I will confess: I am not a big fan of business/self-improvement books like this. (ie. The ones that are pint-sized and feel created to simply be marketing props to get on “Amazon Best Seller” lists or some other cheap ploy in that vein.) But our CEO, whom I do deeply respect, vouched for Compass and S is also currently traveling which means I had tons of free time last week, so I took a flier and actually read Glazer’s book.

To my complete shock, it was good! Like, actually, genuinely good.

Now, YMMV; it really all depends if you’re able to engage with the book sincerely and honestly. And I’ll admit: I don’t think I could’ve done this book a decade ago. As the saying goes, “the teacher appears when you are ready”, and I think I likely didn’t have the requisite self-knowledge or — more importantly, lived life experience — a decade ago to give this book a fair shake. (Not to mention, I think a decade ago, I was honestly just “unteachable”, for various reasons. 🙄)

But what was then. This past week I read the book and then actually did its pen and paper exercises. (Yes, it’s one of those kinds of books.) My results surprised me so I wanted to take a snapshot in time by dedicating this month’s dispatch to my findings.

My four core values, stack-ranked:

1. Curiosity

1. Phrase: “I love learning and am drawn to novelty.”

2. This is perhaps the most prime of my Prime Directives. I love learning. Reading, podcasts, TV shows, movies, talking with people. I love learning about most things, experiencing novel things, visiting new places, seeing new cultures, watching new kinds of movies. My life mottos are, “If you don’t try, you’ll never know.” and, “Try everything once before categorically rejecting things.”

3. Example of failure: I was judgmental about social media for many, many years and harbored extreme prejudice towards it despite never having really fairly tried it. Then on January 1, 2024, I committed to using social media every single day. It’s changed my life and I post at least once every day now. One of my genuine life regrets is that I did not use social media earlier. I believe had I done so, I would be living a totally different life right now.

4. Incuriosity is unthinkable to me. I possess a deep-seated desire to know and understand, “why?” “Because I said so.” is a deeply unsatisfying answer to me.
   

2. Community/sharing/pluralism

1. Phrase: “We live in a society; a meaningful human existence requires others.”

2. Learning and living on your own is fantastic, and I did that for many decades solo, but after I met S nine years ago, I’ve slowly realized that human life — IMHO, at least — is most enriching and fulfilling in multiplayer mode. Life, is ultimately, short. I turn 40 next year and am essentially about halfway through life. If you’re not paying attention, you’ll literally just die one day without really knowing what happened. Spending time with people you love, care about, and admire has become deeply important to me. I do believe that “we are all connected by a red thread”. I believe in a very woo woo way that I am ultimately an instrument of the Universe. And only when my words and actions are public can I — in whatever small humble way, shape, or form that is required — touch another human being’s life in the way that the Universe wills. I believe we all have our parts to play and while I can’t prove it I do believe that there’s a greater, higher power at work and part of my responsibility as an entity that exists is to serve It.

3. Example of failure: When I was in my twenties I contributed a ton to my company’s SharePoint. Not just work stuff but also a personal corner of it I’d called, “Robertland”. (Lol, that SharePoint page may even still be alive to this day! 🤔) We didn’t have the vocabulary for it back then, but that closed space (it was internal to only the company) was what and would today call a “Dark Forest”. Anyway, after I’d left the bank, I completely lost access to their internal SharePoint, thereby vaporizing the countless hours of investment I’d spent on Robertland. 😭 It was a bitter lesson, but one I’d learned well; I now refuse to participate in any closed space which can be taken from me at a moment’s notice and am now an ardent POSSE acolyte.

4. A solitary life where I don’t share is unthinkable to me. (When people get too isolated they go the way of the Unabomber; it’s not good for them or society.) When I hear a cool podcast or YouTube clip, I am always thinking of which friend would value the clip. I love sharing because it’s also a way to stay connected to loved ones as well and also a way to leave archival exhaust; a trail of breadcrumbs of what caught my fancy at various points of my life.
   

3. Selective growth and continuous improvement in what I care about

1. Phrase: “If we’re not moving forward, we’re dying.”

2. A world where I’m not advancing in a way I consider meaningful or enriching is literally hell on earth to me. This week, it might be learning the (price-gouging) Adobe suite of tools and how to make comics with generative AI. Next week, it might be writing a short story to submit to a Science Fiction & Fantasy competition. Above nearly all else, I value my freedom and the ability to pursue projects that speak to my soul. When the Universe beckons, I feel obliged to honor Its call.

3. Example of failure: For my first job out of college, I’d worked in back office infrastructure technology at a bank. It paid handsomely but was ultimately stagnating in a way that adversely impacted my health. The job wasn’t even hard. It was simply, when I reflect upon it now, too narrow. I was a software developer back then and could go entire weeks without really speaking much to other human beings. It was not a good fit and I eventually developed health issues so severe that I needed to leave the company.

4. Stagnation is unthinkable. Not finding my work interesting is unthinkable. Does that make me spoiled? Yes. I concede this point because it costs me nothing, because it is true. I am spoiled. I’m not proud of my inability to tolerate stagnation but it’s the cards I’ve been dealt so I make lemonade. I think of it as a kind of disability; that is, the inability to repeatedly do things that I dislike in a manner that is not time-bound. It literally does not matter how much money I am given; I sadly cannot do something ad nauseam if I dislike it. ☹️ I have learned empirically that my own body will literally rather die than have my mind and soul stagnate. So I’ve done what I needed to do to survive.
   

4. Fairness + following rules

1. Phrase: “Rules apply uniformly to everyone and actions have consequences.”

2. I believe in doing everything possible to decrease the effect of random luck on outcomes. And, notably, when I think of an unfair world (for example, a more equitable world where certain populations are given advantages because of historical structural inequities, that positively grinds my gears. So for instance, I agree with the Supreme Court’s decision that affirmative action is unlawful), there is only one entity that’s allowed to make things unfair: The Universe. The Universe sets different starting lines for everyone and that is, I believe, Its intentional will. Again, I believe we all have our parts to play and as humans, we play the cards we are dealt; it is what it is. We need to follow the rules because, “We live in a society.” (See point 2.)

3. Example of success: S and I own a Tesla and give Elon money every month for our car insurance. The Tesla insurance program tracks every single vehicular movement. If we speed on the highway, we pay more the next month. If we don’t stop entirely at stop signs, it dings us for that too. It literally dings us for every possible violation in the book; every single driving infraction we make in a month monetarily penalizes us the next month. I deliberately have chosen to enroll us in Elon’s program because I think it’s the right thing to do. (As Sartre memorably remarked, “in choosing for himself he chooses for all men.”) Yes, I could be paying less in premiums each month to State Farm. But if we break the rules, we should suffer the consequences. And if I had my way, it would be like this for everyone. For example, one day I dream of a world with total interconnected ubiquitous surveillance where if you sped in a school zone, your license would simply be instantly automatically revoked. Think of all the lives such total blanket surveillance would save. (For the record, they’re already doing this with CCTV systems in the UK, Singapore, and China. America is simply behind, but I trust we can eventually catch up!) In summary, I believe in the greater good.

4. For the record, I take it even farther than automobile insurance and registration too. Example: back in college (twenty years ago, now!), my roommate and I used to play the Xbox game, Gears of War, at his house in Flushing and there was a ridiculous weapon called the Hammer of Dawn. It was an orbital, satellite-based laser system that you could call down from on high which would incinerate whatever you pointed it at in the game.
   
   If I had my way, anyone who littered in public spaces or didn’t pick up after their dog would simply be vaporized on the spot from the heavens, smitten by a Hammer of Dawn-style orbital laser system. It doesn’t matter to me your marital/parental status, color, creed, age, LinkedIn title, socioeconomic status, or sex. I literally do not care if you are The President of the United States, Tom Cruise, or Taylor Swift. If you sully the commons, I would expect instant justice in a perfect world. This is one of my core values: fairness + rules following. Every time I see litter or dog poo outside in public I do feel a shock of anger. I believe that people who don’t follow rules warrant punishment for the benefit of broader society. If there are no consequences for bad actors, then what ties civilization together?

—

Anyway, I do really endorse and highly recommend ’s The Compass Within. For years now, I’ve had these thoughts all floating about in my mind in a nebulous constellation but never properly took the time to sit down and concretize my values in a formal way like this Substack post. I am super grateful that our company gave us all copies! Again, I know it may initially seem cringe, but I really do highly recommend sitting down and actually doing the exercises in the book. Glazer has a great passage from the book, which I’ll end on for this month (emphasis, mine):

See everyone in December! One month left in 2025!! 🥳

Warmly,
Robert

—

Postscript - other stuff in November

1. Back in early November, asked me to write 1,000 words on “How I leverage LLMs” for which I loved putting together! I believe that despite being epistemologically unsound, LLMs will continue to garner mass adoption and daily usage at unprecedented speed. I agree with ’s characterization of AI as “polytheistic”.

2. In November, the crew and I watched The Running Man - I liked it! Recommend. 👍

Postscript 2

Refinement - 12/3/25:

[Note: I’d originally specified “diversity” on 11/29; changed to “pluralism” on 12/3.]

One thing I really liked about reading Glazer’s book is that in subsequent days after finishing Compass and writing about it, I’ve continued thinking about it. Specifically, one of the chief constraints in Glazer’s framework that you’re limited to only four core values and so this necessarily forces you to think hard about the precise words/phrases you choose. One of my faults is I’m sometimes sloppy with words, especially words that occupy similar embedding space.

So after initially writing this document and publishing on 11/29, I’ve been continually pressure testing my values and reflecting on core memories (think of the little orb things in Pixar’s Inside Out movies - those are a fundamental component of Glazer’s framework too; our core values are often informed/influenced by our core memories).

After thinking harder about it, I’ve revised my core value #2 of “diversity” to “pluralism”. (In particular, I want to credit ChatGPT which (IMHO) is the best personal Socrates that $20/mo can buy and helped sharpen my thinking/understanding here.) “Diversity” is a descriptor. “Pluralism”, OTOH, is a way of life. It’s possible to believe in diversity but not in pluralism. However, it’s not possible to believe in pluralism but not diversity. After reflecting, I realized that, for me, diversity is necessary but not sufficient. I believe in more than diversity - I believe in engaging with the commons, sharing, and understanding others, especially if we disagree. As ChatGPT puts it: believing in pluralism is believing in “interaction across lines of difference”. Pluralism is one of my core values.

I confess— ever since I started writing on Substack this past summer, it’s been disorganized. (Though it’s more tidy than what I erstwhile did!) I largely treat Substack as a dumping ground for various thoughts, the occasional movie review, and whatever random experiment I might currently be conducting and wish to record/memorialize. Think of my Substack as a Superfund site for my life learning exhaust. 😂

After reflecting a bit (and here, I was very inspired by who chronicles in hyper-granular detail all the hikes she does in Japan; thank you, Emma! Always fun following your blog 🙂) I’ve decided to shift to a more ordered, monthly dispatch model. I’m a huge journaler and basically currently use my Bluesky like this— I just fire off scattershot thoughts as I think them. But the challenge with my current structure is it has no place where I can aggregate my reflections and synthesize “one-level-up”. So I’m hoping to use this monthly dispatch model to accomplish that. I’m starting now in October 2025 and am committing to monthly missives until September 2026. Twelve monthly dispatches in total. Let’s see where it goes! 🚀

…

October was the month of Fiction Excerpts and Substack Live

On October 9th, I got together with who graciously had me on his Substack Live series. It was lots of fun and the first Substack Live I’d ever done. So much fun, in fact, that I did two more! Ever since summer, I’d been wanting to read and discuss the book, Antimemetics, with other interested folk. To me, the entire idea of the internet was to connect and discuss with random people online who shared your interests — if we can’t do that, then what are we even doing here? 🤔 And it happened! Substack Live only supports three simultaneous co-hosts so , , and I first met up for Part I and then , , and I met up for Part II. Good times all around! If you haven’t Substack Lived with anyone, I really encourage it. I really like Substack; it may be destroying culture as we know it but as a tool to meet others with shared interests and hobbies, it’s the most polished platform currently out there, IMHO. So I’m in!! 🎉

Aside from Substack Live, for every single day in October, I’ve also been keeping track of memorable fiction excerpts from books I’ve read the entire way through. I’ve lived roughly half my life and have read a great many terrific books. So for October I wanted to take a beat to properly appreciate them. The game was such: every day I’d recall from memory a particular passage from a fiction book that moved me. I don’t have photographic memory so I couldn’t recall their exact texts verbatim. But I could often recall enough to then look them up; I’d then borrow ebooks from the library (or buy their Kindle versions) and manually find the precise passage to excerpt. It took a bit of time each morning but I really came to appreciate the exercise. These books were old friends, with me during all my various seasons of life. Revisiting some of these passages also triggered attendant contextual memories as well: where was I living when I read that book? How old was I? What was I doing during that period of my life? So on, so forth. Memory dividends are the gift that keep giving. 📖

…

Walking and the importance of a good rivalry

Finally, rounding out my October is I’ve embarked upon another side quest: emerging victorious against at our company’s “Summer Shred Challenge” next year in 2026:

“Summer Shred Challenge” is a three-month internal competition within our company every June-to-September to see which employee accrues the most steps. (For those who don’t walk, there’s a (suspicious, IMHO! 🤔) “activity conversion chart”.)

Anyway, this new side quest has entailed me buying new shoes (Hoka Bondi 9 Wides), joining a local gym, buying a new phone, and downloading all the apps. James walks over 25k steps a day which translates into over three hours of walking each day. I’ve changed around my entire sleep schedule to now wake at the crack of dawn in the bitter dark and cold to hit the gym and now goto sleep each night by 10p ET. I now only reply to messages and emails when I’m walking. I only watch YouTube and listen to podcasts when I’m walking. I had to call my ISP recently about a billing question — done while walking. I’ve experimented with walking outside and on a treadmill and have found that I’m able to walk many more steps in an hour on a treadmill (~7,000 steps) vs when I’m outside (~5,300). Outdoors, I’ve gotta watch out for dogs, cars, small children, etc. And since I’m constantly just looking down at my phone, it can actually be dangerous so I’ve switched over most of my walking to inside.

Rivalries are super-important though. People who grow up with siblings playing the same sport are often better athletes. (The Bryan brothers in tennis and Dog and Pixel Andy in Classic Tetris come to mind.) For this reason, I suggest to folks: if you’re working on a self-improvement project —especially one that involves achieving concrete metrics— find an archrival! A Drago to your Rocky. An Anderson to your Kamogawa. 💪👊✊

Greatness isn’t born. Greatness is forged. 🔥

…

This month’s photo

So I was walking around the Oakley neighborhood in Cincy last weekend (getting my 25k steps! 👟) and stumbled across this gem! A drive-through for beer and chips! 👀 I honestly had no idea these types of establishments even existed. Here’s another reason you should walk more though— you’ll learn all about the places in which you live!! 🎉